German Comics and Intercultural Dialogue: Birgit Weyhe’s Rude Girl (2022).

While Prof. Priscilla Layne was living in Berlin in fall of 2018 on a fellowship from the American Academy, she made the acquaintance of German graphic novelist Birgit Weyhe.  Prof. Layne was working on an essay about the depiction of race in her books and met with the author in Hamburg.  Ms. Weyhe pitched the idea of working on an autobiographical comic about Prof. Layne’s experiences growing up in Chicago and then living in Germany. This idea was intriguing to both, based on their conversations about cultural appropriation, race, and feminist practice. They worked on the book for nearly four years, and it is now finished. They discussed the first chapter during a Zoom event on March 11, 2022, hosted by the Center for European Studies.